Rogelio V. Morales and spouse Mireya Arias were both ordered into custody without bail by Riverside County Superior Court Judge Samuel Diaz Jr. after a lengthy afternoon session in which scores of jurors’ verdicts and findings were alternately read by two members of Diaz’s court staff.

Morales also was convicted of felony stalking and a dozen misdemeanor contempt-of-court convictions stemming from violating a restraining order against him for harassing Rosa Elena Sahagún, an attorney who was advising several business owners who Morales and Arias had sued. She had organized a protest outside his office in July 2016. “It has been a long time battling Rogelio Morales and his wife, Mireya Arias. This is a clear example of how the community can prevail if they unite,” Sahagún said in a texted statement.

Despite the harassment by Morales, “I would do this all over again. I would stand up for the small businesses and help them organize.”

Morales’ one comment in court was to tell Diaz, “the sooner, the better for me,” as prosecutors and Arias’s defense attorney worked out a sentencing date for the couple while courtroom deputies fitted them with handcuffs. They settled on Jan. 8, 2019.

The hate crime enhancements attached to several of the felony charges were filed because “the defendants selected targets” based on race, perceived nationality or ethnicity of the business owners. “His animus toward members of the Hispanic and Asian communities is revealed through the repeated use of derogatory and offensive names” that he used, prosecutors said.

Jurors only disagreed with two of the several hate-crime enhancements for Morales, who faced more charges than Arias. He was charged with extortion, and both were charged in the wide range of accusations with sending threatening letters with intention to extort.

Morales and Arias engaged in a scheme in 2016 to file “meritless gender discrimination lawsuits to pressure minority business owners into giving them thousands of dollars in alleged ‘settlements,’” a prosecution trial brief said.

Prosecutors said Morales and Arias would obtain services from the small businesses they targeted — salons or dry cleaners — and if they were charged differently for the same service, they would file a lawsuit claiming a a violation of a California anti-discrimination law prosecutors said.

The lawsuits were unsupported, prosecutors said. One salon in Riverside was sued after it charged Arias $15 and Morales $8 for haircuts — her haircut took longer than Morales — but Arias sued Xotic Image Hair Salon “a matter of mere hours” later, seeking $67,000 in damages.

“Just two days later, defendant Morales began calling the the business three to four times a day, identifying himself as defendant Arias’s lawyer and ‘offering to settle’ the lawsuit for $10,000,” prosecutors alleged in one of the scenarios in the case.

“In 11 weeks, defendants Morales and Arias filed 11 lawsuits against 11 minority owned and operated small businesses in Riverside County demanding, in aggregate, more than $2 million in damages,” prosecutors said.

“He never got a penny,” Rosie Quintana, who owns Your Hair Place in Jurupa Valley and was sued by Arias, said Monday night outside the downtown Riverside courthouse where Morales and Arias were convicted.

“Those two got what they deserved,” she said, “for hurting small businesses owned by immigrants who are rightfully here. We all stuck together, and justice was served,” she said.

Defense attorney Darryl Exum, who represented Arias, said after the verdicts that “the community was outraged about the case,” and that it did not diminish over time. “I’m still not sure that Mr. Morales’ conduct wasn’t constitutionally protected, but now it’s for another court to review.”

The case was prosecuted by Riverside County Deputy District Attorneys Heather Ferris and Lauren Dossey.

Pro bono lawyer Bryan Owens Sahagún, who represents several of the businesses in Riverside County and one in Los Angeles, said Monday night after the verdicts that he planned to file for dismissal of suits against the clients he represents, because neither Morales or Arias were likely to attend court hearings after going to jail Monday night.

The Los Angeles lawsuit, he said, against the now-closed Visage Salon at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, was scheduled to start Tuesday. Ten of the 11 Riverside County lawsuits were set for trial on Jan. 4, with one of them already ended with a favorable verdict for the dry cleaner owners, he said.